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Health for all - only a dream ?
Just as I am trying to cure an incipient bout of malaria, I happened to find in the n° 2540 of the magazine Jeune Afrique a quotation from Professor Marc Gentilini, an expert on tropical disease. I can not refrain from sharing it with you.
“In the past six months there were 2 000 deaths of swine flu (A), whilst the deaths of malaria were 500 000.”
I would supplement
“And yet there is still no vaccine against malaria !”
  As I am preparing to leave for Nigeria, there is not much time and I must be brief. I merely want to add that here in Burkina September is the time of the year when outbreaks of malaria are the most frequent and the most serious. It is the rainy season and there are lots of mosquitoes about. Farmers are tired after the work in the fields. This period is the “hyphen”, the gap between the two annual harvests. Some do not have enough food to feed their families. They are therefore less fit to resist attacks of malaria.
However, since the rainfall has been abundant, there is also hope. While the rain has caused damage here and there, it has also brought about the greening of Burkina. If it keeps falling for another fortnight, most farmers can look forward to a good harvest.
Kougougou September 21st, 2009
Maurice Oudet
Director, SEDELAN
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